


Blindside

by Pseudthisyafucks (collettephinz)



Series: Yo Ho, Yo Ho, I've Made a Fucking Mistake [2]
Category: Youtube - RPF
Genre: Black Spot, Gen, Island life, Minor Character Death, Origin Story, Pirate AU, besties being besties, mentioning of slaves/slave trade, really minor character massacre, revenge is a dish best served with fruit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 08:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collettephinz/pseuds/Pseudthisyafucks
Summary: In the beginning, Seán was a a blacksmith and had every intention of remaining as one for the rest of his life. But the world had other plans.- - -Seán and Robin's origin story for Black Spot





	Blindside

**Author's Note:**

> **why didn't anyone tell me Robin's first name is Kristoffer ffs i'll figure this out god dammit**

The waves lapped gently around Seán’s ankles, warm and welcoming and soothing the sores on the bottoms of his feet. He’d spent another long day with his father, fashioning hooves for Mr. Harper’s mule so it could make its weekly trek to the other side of the island to their sister town. His feet were sore because he needed new shoes, but his mother was taking her time in making a new pair for him. Something about using the current pair well beyond their time for efficiency. Seán just didn’t see a point in his feet having more sores than his hands. The knife that he always kept in his shoe was clearly visibly through the worn leather. 

A sprinkle of the warm ocean water hit his face and Seán swatted out blindly to his left, smirking as his hand hit Robin’s side, causing the other boy to cry out in alarm. “What was that for?” Robin demanded.

“You very well know,” Seán replied, looking out into the inky blackness that was both the sky and the sea. The gentle fire they had flickering in front of them did very little for lighting the vastness beyond them. Even though the sun had set long ago, their island was blessed with perfectly temperament weather regardless of the seasons that arguably didn’t even exist here. If you couldn’t see it and didn’t affect, was it really real? At least in your personal world view. Seán had never experienced a winter or a fall, arguably never even a spring. Just a wet season versus a dry. Seán loved the consistency and could never imagine leaving his home. Unlike Robin.

“Looking at the ocean, huh?” Robin asked. “Did you know that we’re in the fifth ocean?”

Seán frowned. “What?”

“I've never told you that? We are.”

“No, I get that, but since when was it the fifth? It’s just the Arlan Sea.”

Robin shrugged. “That’s how we know it. But the Easterners call it the Healiean Ocean. And the Bastian Royalty calls us the Bastian Sea.”

Seán rolled his eyes. “The Bastians are a bunch of blood hungry monsters, I’m hardly about to take anything they say to heart. Where did you learn all this? Did you get a new book?”

Robin smiled widely. Then he slipped a tiny, leather-bound book from his back pocket. “Early birthday present. Not sure where my mother found it or how much she paid for it, but it arrived with the traders from last week. The ones who took the harvest.”

Seán nodded along, because of course he knew about the latest harvest they’d sold. The island didn’t have much to offer in lier of rich soil, but what the island did have was a special species of fruit that was native _only_ to this island. Something about the temperament climate that Seán loved so much. The fruit had a hard purple exterior and grew from treetops, called Jacquelyn for the woman who had found their island, the same woman their island was named for. Apparently the fruit was infused into a tea that the Bastian family used for special rituals in the court and diplomacy. Needles to say, with the treaties being forged these days, diplomacy was in excess and the tea in high demand. 

“Seventeen,” Robin said softly to himself. Seán looked to him with a raised brow. “I’ll be seventeen. In three days.” Robin smiled brightly at him. “I’m finally catching up to you!”

“Only for another two months,” Seán reminded him with a scoff. He smiled anyways as an afterthought. “What would ye’ like for me to give you?”

Robin shrugged. “Not sure. Your father is already making me that rapier.”

Seán scoffed again. “Still can’t believe you want such an ugly thing.”

“Rapiers are standard issue with the Bastian Royal Navy. If I’m to join them, I’ll need to be at least decent with the weapon.”

“Still can’t believe ye’ want to sail with them.”

Robin smiled wider and shrugged. “I want to see the world. Always have. There’s more out there than this island, Seán. And in this book— it’s a journal, and old pirate log— it talks about the three anomalies of the world. I want to see them, Seán. I want to see everything.”

“Pretty sure there are books out there that have pictures.”

Robin shoved Seán back into the sand, laughing. “The pictures aren’t the same, Seán! I need to be out there, you know? I need to see the cliffs in front of me. I need to hear the voices. I need to do it myself, and nothing else will work as a substitute.”

“Just don’t know why ye’ can’t be happy here,” Seán said from the ground, looking up at the endless stars above. It was another perfect, clear night. At home, his mother would have dinner ready for him to eat before it was off to bed. Then he’d wake up, wash, and go back to work with his father, shaping iron and steel and making the lives of the people in his village better. Seán didn’t understand why Robin wanted to leave. It wasn’t like it was going to get any better than this. “There’s bad people out there.” They were lucky to have been left untouched by the dark hand of the world for so long. No slavery, no ransacking, nothing. It was a genuine paradise, protected by the Bloody Bastians so the royal family could have their special tea. Leaving was practically a death sentence. 

“I’m not, like, wanting to leave home,” Robin said after a moment where he’d clearly been thinking. “I know there are bad things out there, but— there’s a lot of good. There is.” Robin looked down at the leather-bound book and smiled to himself. “I’ve read of things. Amazingly good things, in people and places. I know it’s a scary world out there, but it’s also a beautiful one. And I want to see it.” 

Seán grimaced. “I guess. I just wish you could see all of that from here.”

Robin laughed. “What’s wrong, Seán? Already missing me?”

“Of course I am,” Seán replied without shame. “And concerned. I can’t very well protect you when you go off on those ships and sail the world. Ye’ve never been any good at winning fights on yer own.”

Robin laughed even louder and tossed more water at Seán. “Then I guess you’ll have to make sure that your father makes me a good sword. One that will more than make up for your absence.”

Seán didn’t answer. He stared up at those stars and wondered if they looked the same on the other side of the world. He couldn’t imagine they would. Robin wasn’t seventeen yet, wouldn’t be accepted for any draft until he was at least nineteen, but that wasn’t enough time for him to become someone else, someone who could survive the seas on his own. Seán didn’t like to rub Robin’s face in his inadequacy or anything, but Robin bruised easily and he burned in the sun. He wasn’t meant for the Navy. He wasn’t meant for anything but the paradise he’d been born into and Seán would give up a lot of this paradise just to keep Robin here, safe. 

But that wasn’t in Seán’s right, and that wasn’t his responsibility. Seán had a father and mother and siblings. Robin wasn’t the only person in his life that he needed to live for and he couldn’t give up his future just to ensure Robin’s, no matter how much he wished he could. Seán needed to be alive and successful to give his parents food when they couldn’t work any longer.

“I’ll always come back,” Robin said, voice constricted with some sort of emotion. Seán looked to him and saw there was a brightness in his eyes. “I can promise you that. I have my own life to return to. And I’ll always come back to you and that life with stubborn insistence.” Robin turned to him and smiled, as he always would. Robin never had trouble lending smiles. 

Seán still didn’t return the smile.

Robin dropped his, then sighed. “You don’t believe me.”

“You’re wrong— I do believe you. But I also believe that the world out there will have very different plans than what you expect.”

Robin shook his head. “You’re too young to be this jaded.”

“And you’re too old to be this ignorant.”

“Maybe I’m not ignorant, just optimistic. You’re seventeen, Seán. No reason to have the pessimism of the elderly. Old man.”

Seán snorted and shoved Robin in retaliation. “I’m only a year older than you, and barely that. If you’re going to start calling me names like that, then I get to call you baby names as well. It’s only fair.”

“Well, maybe I want that.” At Seán’s incredulous expression, Robin made a face and shrugged. He played with sand between his fingers. “Maybe I’ve wanted you to call me baby names all along. You don’t know me, Seán. I’m aging. I’m changing. It’s bound to happen to everyone. Maybe I’m maturing faster than you.”

"Maturing faster by wanting to be called baby names?”

“Have you really been so lucky that you haven’t heard what your parents do at night?”

“Oh god, stop.” Seán pretended to gag. “You and I are not— no.”

Robin snickered. “Better act quickly, Seán. In a few years, you’ll have missed your chance with me.”

“I will gladly keep you from waiting and tell you now that I have no intentions of ever wooing you and calling you baby names.” Seán finally sat up and looked back into the inkiness. “We should head back in, Robin. We’ve a big day ahead of us.”

“Oh, so big,” Robin drawled. “You get to make more shoes and I get to go fishing, once again, with my uncle and father, as I do every day. And guess what I’ll be doing the day after? Fishing.”

“At least ye’ll know how to sail,” Seán said. “Can’t join the Navy if ye’ can’t sail.”

Robin tried to hide his smile. “Shut up, Seán.”

They both stood in unison. Even for Seán’s teasing and Robin’s exasperation with routine, they knew they would be awake bright and early regardless. Responsibility trumped all else. Robin pushed Seán idly as they walked back up the beach, trusting their small fire to go out on its own, already anticipating returning the next night to rekindle the coals and bask in their shared solitude once again. Seán never felt a loss at the ending of these nights because he knew he would always have another in less than a day’s time. 

“Tomorrow,” Robin said as he and Seán approached the outskirts of town, where they would have to part ways. Living on opposite ends of the village was really the only complaint Seán would ever have about his life in paradise. 

“Tomorrow,” Seán echoed. No need to promise, only acknowledge. “Have a good day, Robin. Try not to empty the ocean.”

“We’re only in the fifth one! There’s so much more for me to fish!”

Seán laughed as he left Robin and walked him. He was still smiling as he slipped into his house and went to the table to eat his cold dinner, left for him to find by his mother.

. . .

He woke up to the sound of distant braying and new instantly that Mr. Harper’s damn mule had run off again. He peeled himself out of bed with a groan, glanced to where his siblings all slept peacefully. Allison was snoring and her hair was falling into her opened mouth. Seán puled the strand from her mouth and smoothed her hair before leaving the room and leaving the house. It was a gorgeous house. It only had two bedrooms and small, but it had also been in their family for more generations than there was documented in the tiny town hall at the other side of the island. And it was warm and welcoming even in the middle of the night, so he wasn’t very eager to leave it, but Mr. Harper had bad knees and relied on that damn mule, so Seán felt like he needed to go after it.

He toed on his shoes and walked out into the night. He heard the braying within the lush jungle just beyond the town. Jacquelyn Island was a larger-than-average island created by an old, dormant volcano. The soil was rich and the center of the island was miles of jungle that nurtured the very fruit trees they relied on. It was deep and sometimes dangerous, but if you just kept going straight, you’d end up at the other town. Seán didn’t have any concern in going into the jungle to find the stupid mule. 

He stepped through the underbrush and called out the mule’s name— Leah. An old name for a male mule, but Mr. Harper was one of the oldest in town and had spent years with his mind baking in the sun. His oddities were forgiven en masse. Seán called out again to the mule and heard a distance response deeper in the jungle. How the damn thing had untied itself from its usually night post was a mystery to him. Tee moonlight shone brightly through the large canopy overhead and he had little trouble navigating in the dark.

After a long while of following the distant sound of what _he hoped_ was the mule, Seán rounded a a denser area of trees and saw the mule standing in the middle of a small, partial clearing, eating moss from a single tree in the middle of this clearing. Above Leah’s head grew some unharvested Jacquelyn fruit, brightly colored and ripe. Seán narrowed his eyes at the mule. “You owe me,” he told him before climbing atop her back and reaching up into the tree. He twisted one of the fruits from its branch and dropped back down onto the ground, pulling his knife from the inside of this shoe, where it always sat. He peeled the fruit and pulled apart the juicy flesh of the inside. Seán offered a section to Leah, who happily ate it. 

“Should see about gettin’ ye’ a metal brace,” Seán mumbled, talking to the mule like he could respond. “Just meld ye’ to the post. No more of this rope business. Do you know how to untie knots or are Mr. Harper’s hands too shaky?” The mule nuzzled at the rest of Seán’s fruit and he smiled as he cut out another chunk for him to eat. Then he took out more for himself. 

There really was nothing else in the world like Jacquelyn fruit. Maybe he thought the Bastian’s insane in their royal desires, but he could see why this fruit would be sought off. Sweet with just a hint of tanginess at the end that brought out the flavor of the fruit. The sweetness made it fantastic for drinks, while the tanginess was perfect for marinading fish. His mother had the most perfect spice blend to accompany the Jacquelyn for the swordfish that was caught once in a blue moon. The town made a feast out of such occasions. 

Seán finished off the fruit, climb the mule once again to pick two more, and then sighed, scratching Leah just behind the ears. “Should get ye’ home,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. Harper won’t even notice ye’d been gone.” He smiled as the mule tilted its head into his touch. “I’m sure you’d like that, huh?”

He kept his hand on the back of Leah’s neck and turned to lead him back towards town when he noticed something wrong. There was more light than there should be, a golden glow that sent a thrill of anxiety through Seán’s spine. He knew what the glow meant. His thoughts distantly went to the fire he and Robin had left to burn. It couldn’t have spread but—

Seán raced through the jungle, forgetting Leah in the face of the fear. The glow became harsher and Seán’s breath was rattling in his lungs. Branches sliced his skin, the light hurt his eyes, _his feet fucking hurt_ , but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop if he wanted to. Seán broke through the last of the jungle and stumbled.

_His home was burning._

He hadn’t even heard screaming. Was anyone hurt? Was anyone even alive to make a sound? Every building was alight with flames, burning too brightly for him to look at for long. It took him only a few moments of horrified paralysis before Seán broke into a run again, tearing through the town, avoiding the flames to get home. He could hear Allison snoring in the back of his mind and felt sick as his mind had her choking on smoke rather than her hair. A building collapsed just to his left and the embers flew into his face. Seán cried out and covered his skin. _Why wasn’t anyone screaming?_

He rounded Mr. Harper’s shell of a home and screeched to a halt.

In front of him was the tiny town square where feasts would be held, where weddings would be celebrated, where children would be named. Every good thing that happened in this town was round this square, this one beautiful area of cobblestone where everyone could meet and make merry. Seán didn’t have on foul memory of this square.

Now, it had a conglomeration of corpses in the centre of it. People he knew, people he loved, people he could recognize better than the lines on his hands. His mother stared up at him with dead eyes, blood draining from her slit throat. Allison’s neck hung at an awkward angle where she had been dumped on top of their brother. Mr. Harper had been cleaved in two. Robin’s father had his mouth open in an endless scream, his chest blown away. Robin’s mother and her brother had gaping holes in their stomachs. Robin—

_Robin wasn’t here._

Of course he wouldn’t.

Robin was a special thing, an exception. He wasn’t born on this island like everyone else, he’d been brought here by traders and adopted by his family. Robin wasn’t like everyone else on this island. He was fair skinned and blond and gentle in a way everyone else wasn’t. Robin was— Robin was beautiful in his own rights, something that would be coveted. Treasured. _Sold._ These damn pirates had taken the one jewel they would find on this island and they had every intention to sell Robin to the highest bidder, because that was the way the world worked. 

Seán’s once sluggish thoughts operated quickly. He looked past the corpses to the ocean— to the ship that was sailing away. How he and Robin had missed its approach earlier tonight was a mystery to him, but Seán could see it now and he would never forget it. The flag the ship boasted was two cutlasses running through the body of a mermaid. Seán didn’t know who they were, but they would know him once he was done with them. 

. . .

The next morning, in the cooling embers of his town, Seán dug through the ashes of his home and pulled out the rapier his father had nearly finished and the rifle his great great grandfather had made, passed down through generations only to land in Seán’s hand for his timely revenge.


End file.
